By blog standards, I must run the cleanest operation on the World Wide Web. We’re very close to the 9-Month mark here in the life of “Tanking for Dummies.” In all that time, not even one dirty, lewd or suggestive search term has popped up on my blog statistics. Getting these little nuggets of comedy is practically a badge of honor. Writing about them could be seen as the mark of being a “real blogger.” But not me, no, no tiny tweets of titillation have seen fit to include this site.

Well, that was, until Monday.

There was no ambiguity about it. Some mysterious and lonely net denizen was looking to sate their desires with some World of Warcraft related materials. What road of hedonistic desire brought them here, you might ask? What method of lecherous inquiry?

I’ve made no secret of my love of the Elementium Reinforced Bulwark. It’s “forged from the door of a Mercedes” look is forever impressed into my heart as a kind of measure against which all other shields are judged. I am sure then, dear reader, you can appreciate my un-abated joy at the revelation of a worthy successor.

Make sure you get a good look at the full picture hosted by our dear friends at MMO Champion. Sure, you say, it doesn’t have the riveted to an armored Mercedes door look of the Bulwark – but damn if it isn’t the door to a Tesla. I mean – look at the heft on that thing! It’s like it was hewn out of a giant slab of icy iron just to sit on our arms and say “Now just imagine how this will feel when I hit you in the face. ”

Nothing quite says hello like Shield Slam, especially when it’s accompanied by a shield that looks like it has it’s own architecture. You know what I mean?

Looking ahead to the horizon, I can’t stop thinking about Block and what you could do with it. Particularly, I’ve been mulling around Yakra’s idea that some kind of proc should occur based on your percent chance to block. This seems like a good use to me (it at least keeps the block rating part of the equation, keeping down the amount of re-itemization needed), but does bring up the question of what would work as a proc for something that is going to be proc-ing so often? It seems to me that this can be broken into two categories of effects, offensive and defensive, each with their own class of balance problems (at least from a design perspective).

I don’t think I could ever love tanking on a Death Knight or a Druid in the same way I love tanking on my Warrior, and the reason is simple: I love shields.

I loved shields before 300 demonstrated to the world that shields are awesome. It’s not just an implement of protection, it’s dangerous weapon. The first time that someone strapped a block of wood or stretched hide to their arm for added defense was also the first time that someone smacked someone in the face with it. Let’s be honest here – there is something just fantastic about that image that is almost as timeless as the idea of the Warrior.